Sharpening the blade is a term coined by Ian D. McLean¹ as a corollary to blunting the tip. It refers to a design pattern in political discourse for a technique useful in resisting a certain kind of cultural appropriation in which early direct, fierce, and targeted confrontation undermines the influence of people who are “blunting the tip” by explicitly rejecting attempts to redefine one’s own views as often as necessary. The term was first used in reference to R. Foxtale’s rejection of Sara D. Luterman’s attempts to position rolequeerness within the BDSM Scene’s power hierarchy and subsequently adopted by other rolequeer theorists in other conversations to refer to the same behavior.²

See also¶

• List of political design patterns and anti-patterns
• Blunting the tip

References¶

¹ Ian D. McLean: On Rolequeerness

² Maymay: On Rolequeerness – Sharpening the blade